Wrathion Tactics and Strategy guide

Before you start reading the strategy, we advise you to look at the abilities of Wrathion, in our encounter journal pages.

• The fight is made up of two phases which alternate until the boss is dead.
• Phases changes are time-based, with Phase One lasting 3 minutes and Phase Two lasting 1 minute.
• Phase One is a single-target phase during which the raid must fight a traditional dragon enemy (breath and tail swipe) and avoid a few ground-based effects.
• During Phase Two the boss is absent and the raid must deal with adds (stationary in Normal Mode, and mobile/tankable ones in addition to those in Heroic mode).

• During Phase One
  • Perform regular tank swaps to allow the Searing Armor debuff applied by the boss to drop off.
  • Face the boss away from the rest of the raid (to avoid his breath attack from damaging them) while also ensuring that the Tail Swipe attack does not damage them; essentially the raid should always be to the boss's side.
  • Pay particular attention to pick up the boss with correct facing when he lands after Burning Cataclysm.
• During Phase Two
  • On Heroic mode, pick up the Ashwalker Assassins.

• During Phase One
  • Make sure to pay special attention to player health when Gale Blast and Incineration are being used by the boss.
• During Phase Two
  • Pay special attention to healing players designated to destroy Crackling Shards with the Scales of Wrathion, as they will take damage from each shard destroyed.
  • On Heroic mode, be prepared for extremely high damage coming from any Ashwalker Assassins that are still in stealth.

• During Phase One
  • Do as much DPS to Wrathion as possible.
• During Phase Two
  • Focus the Crackling Shards that Scales of Wrathion players are not going to instantly destroy (communicate with your raid to coordinate), ensuring that none are left by the end of the phase.
  • On Heroic mode, make sure to also kill any Ashwalker Assassins that are present.

• During Phase One
  • Make sure to never be in front of or behind Wrathion, in order to avoid his breath and tail attacks.
  • When Gale Blast is being cast, move away from the boss (the dangerous area around him is marked) and spread out 5 or more yards apart until after the meteors land.
  • Players afflicted by Incineration must move far away from the rest of the raid before their debuff expires.
  • During Burning Cataclysm, pay attention and ensure that you move quickly to the safe area in the arena.
• During Phase Two
  • Specially designated players intercept the falling Scales of Wrathion and use this buff to destroy Crackling Shards by running over them. Be prepared for high damage from each destroyed Shard.
  • On Heroic mode, use AoE abilities to reveal the stealthed Ashwalker Assassins as quickly as possible.

During Phase One, the raid fights Wrathion, and no adds are present. Each Phase One lasts approximately 3 minutes.

For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated Wrathion Encounter Journal page.

Burning Cataclysm is the main ability of this phase, and Wrathion will cast it twice before moving to Phase Two. Each cast will leave a small safe space somewhere at the edge of the arena, where the expanding exploding zones will not reach. This is typically located at the opposite end of the arena from where Wrathion moves when he begins casting the ability.

It is also worth noting that Wrathion tends to use his breath attack immediately after performing Burning Cataclysm, so while he is still moving and being positioned by the tanks.

Phase One is relatively simple, and the bullet points below should actually provide you with all the information you need to complete it.

• The raid should stand on one side of Wrathion, to avoid being hit by either Searing Breath or Tail Swipe.
• Tanks should make sure to face Wrathion away from the raid, and to swap in order to drop the stacks of Searing Armor applied by the breath attack.
• Players need to move away from the boss when Gale Blast is being cast, and to stay spread out until after the subsequent meteors land.
• At the start of each Burning Cataclysm cast, the raid must make sure to move to the only area of the arena that will remain safe. This is easy enough to tell by finding the place where no fireballs are going to land, typically leaving the most room between the fiery areas and the edge of the arena. Once the fiery areas expand and explode, the raid should get back into position for Wrathion landing.
• The Molten Eruption ability does not really need to be handled during Phase One, and players should simply ideally not be damaged by standing at the impact locations when the ability is cast, although this damage is not really problematic.

Since you cannot fight Wrathion himself during Phase Two, and since there is quite a bit of downtime during the slow-paced Phase One, this is the ideal time to use Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp, preferably at the pull.

Phase Two starts shortly after the second Burning Cataclysm, and lasts for approximately 1 minute.

For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated Wrathion Encounter Journal page.

Note that the Ashwalker Assassins are only present in Heroic mode.

In short, the strategy of Phase Two is all about destroying every single Crackling Shard before Phase One starts again, while also making sure to intercept all the falling Scales of Wrathion to prevent the high raid-wide damage that failing to do this would cause.

Designated players should intercept the Scales of Wrathion: the best candidates are players with high mobility (so they can move from one shard to the next in order to destroy them) and who also have some means of reducing or altogether avoiding damage taken, since they will need to endure several shard destruction explosions in succession.

The rest of the raid should simply focus their DPS on the shards that Scales of Wrathion players are not destroying.

In Heroic node, several Ashwalker Assassins join the fight. These adds start out in stealth ( Smoke Shroud), and while stealthed they can stun random players for 10 seconds ( Noxious Choke), or pick a target and deal a very high amount of damage to them ( Dark Ambush).

Both the stun and the damaging ability of these adds can be very problematic, so the raid should make sure to reveal them from stealth (by dealing AoE damage or using abilities like Ring of Peace or Hunter flares), since the adds cannot perform the aforementioned abilities if they are not in stealth. Once they are out of stealth, they can be dealt with as though they were regular adds (tanked and killed).